Credit: Inez van Lamsweerde & Vinoodh Matadin

With her 2011 LP, Biophilia, Icelandic singer and performance art icon Björk turned her avant-garde eye on the natural world, using touch-screen technology to present a fantastical vision of Earth, space and all that lies between. She says it allowed her to express herself more fully than ever before. The critically lauded album was released with a suite of custom apps (conceptualized by Björk herself, of course) that were meant to provide a window into her creative process while educating audiences on the science of music and nature.

We spoke with Björk about her Biophilia live show, the children's educational program touring along with it and how the project is fulfilling her childhood dreams.

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The Orchard

Vintage Trouble (left to right): Ty Taylor, Rick Barrio Dill, Richard Danielson, Nalle Colt

The hills of Laurel Canyon might not be the first place you'd think to look for a gritty soul band like Vintage Trouble. But one thing that gives the band's rollicking, old-school flavor some authenticity is their decision to rehearse at their drummer Richard Danielson's house there, pitted inside a tree-covered, mid-'60s time warp bereft of cell phone reception.

"The first week we came up here, we called this place 'The Time Vacuum,'" says vocalist Ty Taylor, sitting outside the band's secluded rehearsal studio. "We would come up here, there's no phone signal, you think you're only gonna be at practice from 3 to 5:30 and then all the sudden it's 11:15."

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Roselle Chen

Alexis Krauss

Sleigh Bells
Fox Theater Pomona
April 4, 2012

See also: Our slideshow of Sleigh Bells at the Mayan Theater

The crowd chanted "Sleigh Bells, Sleigh Bells, Sleigh Bells" in an unlit theater. A fog machine spewing vapors and elegiac church music set the tone of reverence and worship-like fervor bordering on hysteria for the Brooklyn digital hardcore group Sleigh Bells, composed of singer Alexis Krauss and guitarist Derek Miller.

Sleigh Bells is not exactly indie rock or pop on meth or dance-punk, but a combination of them all. The crowd was full of people dancing, writhing, and headbanging.

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Ian Gittler

Guitarist and L.A. native Anthony Wilson has been a part of the jazz scene since his birth. His 93-year-old father, bandleader/raconteur/legend Gerald Wilson, started swinging before World War II and hasn't stopped, but the younger Wilson grew up in a musical landscape as indebted to Peter Frampton as Lionel Hampton. So it should come as no surprise that every Wednesday in April, Wilson will be leading four disparate bands at the Blue Whale, ranging in influence from Tin Pan Alley to the Traveling Wilburys.

"Something in the discourse of our music creates all these different camps," says Wilson, digging into lunch at downtown's Daily Dose. "I don't really like that. One thing that bothers me in jazz, or whatever we want to call it, is that some people think certain styles are nostalgia. But nothing is more forward- or backward-looking than the other. It's all happening now."

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Roselle Chen

Fans at Aziatix concert

Aziatix, Dawen
El Rey Theatre
3/31/12

Since producer Jae Chong formed Aziatix a year ago, they've been on the cover of Newsweek in South Korea, sold out a 10-city U.S. tour last year, hit No. 1 on Japan's R&B and Soul charts, reached No. 4 on the iTunes R&B and Soul chart and were in two showcases at SXSW. Therefore it was surprising to see the El Rey only about half-full. The fans who were there, however, were true fans, mostly teenage to college-aged girls screaming for the R&B and pop trio made up of Eddie Shin from Boston, Nicky Lee from Los Angeles and Jay "Flowsik" Pak from Queens, NY.

The fun, hour-long set was filled with slick production, poppy tunes, sweet songs about love and solid rap from Flowsik.

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Neil Jacobs

Yes, that's Val Kilmer

See also:
*Our review of Ryan Adams, for whom Kilmer as Twain opened
*Renaissance Man Val Kilmer May Have Met his Match

A bomb threat has sealed off the streets surrounding us, but Val Kilmer is calm. His long blond hair tied back into a loose ponytail, the actor is wearing a blue blazer, blue and white checkered shirt, and Levis, and sitting on a couch in his publicist's Hollywood office. He pours himself tea from a thermos and water from a mason jar. As he points to a piece of carrot sticking out of the middle of his "healthy" hamburger patty, he jokes that the meal is nutritious.

This is the infamously difficult Val Kilmer?

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Ciscandra Nostalghia

Iranian singer Ciscandra Nostalghia doesn't like to talk about where she's from. "It's a personal thing for me. I moved from my mother's womb to Earth and ended up in a couple of places. Now I'm here for a short while," she says.

It made sense, then, that a year and a half ago, she posted a request on Craigslist demanding a legitimate, "magical" musical collaborator who wouldn't waste her time. That very night, multi-instrumentalist Roy Gnan drunkenly Googled "vocalist available Los Angeles." He found Nostalghia's ad and, although she had included neither music nor photos, immediately emailed her.

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Rebecca Haithcoat

Ted, Ben, Muffin, Lane

Mansions on the Moon are not at home.

It's an unusually warm Wednesday afternoon, and I'm camped out on the front porch of their Hollywood home thirty minutes after our scheduled meeting time. Suddenly, my phone rings and Ted Wendler, the band's lead singer and guitarist, breathlessly and profusely apologizes for forgetting the interview. "We're running down from Runyon Canyon right now!" he says.

That they're a little spacey is only fitting for a band whose name and sound are inspired by such. Also, the band, rounded out by drummer Lane Shaw and keyboardist Ben Hazlegrove, have just released a 5-song EP called Light Years, completely written and produced by them and executive produced by Pharrell Williams. They're about to set off on tour. Mac Miller is a big fan. In other words, they've got a lot going on.

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Courtesy of Mexican Summer

It's a sunny Saturday afternoon and Aaron Coyes and Indra Dunis -- members of breakout psychedelic duo Peaking Lights -- are trying to mellow out Miko, their vivacious 10-month-old son. He's gnawing on an unopened furniture box from Ikea.

"Dude," Coyes says. "You're being extrasilly today."

It's a rare moment of respite for Peaking Lights. They've just finished mixing their ebullient latest album, Lucifer, due in June on Mexican Summer in the U.S., and on Domino imprint Weird World globally. It's their first new release as part of the career-making, multi-album contracts they signed with the labels this summer. Soon, they'll leave their home in Echo Park for months of touring, including dates in Europe with fellow Angeleno Julia Holter.

For two lifelong independent rockers, that's not just high-stakes stuff -- it's what you do to take care of your family.

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Susan SurfTone, left, with her band Black Tights in the '80s

Watching the Republican debates recently, Susan SurfTone bristled at Newt Gingrich's revisionist history. "He said he and Ronald Reagan took down the Soviet Union," the female guitarist, who plays this Saturday at the Redwood Bar & Grill, says over the phone from her home in Portland. "No. Ronald Reagan and I took it down!"

She's not exaggerating. In the early '80s, SurfTone (real name: Susan Yasinski) was an FBI agent in New York, chosen to monitor KGB agents assigned to UN headquarters. The Soviets weren't allowed to travel more than 25 miles outside New York City, so she would run surveillance and occasionally go undercover to sniff out their motives and next moves.

Sexy job, but she became worried about her future within the bureau. For a lesbian, upward mobility was not going to come easily. Plenty of Hoover men were still in place at the FBI, and "don't ask, don't tell" was the prevailing attitude. It grew increasingly more difficult to make excuses for not dating, and she knew the rumors eventually would prevent a promotion, anyway. "Of course there were more of us," she says. "My girlfriend finally got sick of not being able to go to gay bars. We walked in, and sitting at the bar was another agent."

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